Vivarium | RX 9070 XT 16GB + Ryzen 5 9600X + 32GB DDR5 | Ready-to-Go Gaming PC | PC36

🦎 Vivarium

Smart money; lethal performance

There's no pillar in the front-left corner of this case. Two sheets of glass meet at the edge instead, so the first thing you see isn't a frame holding the machine in, it's... the machine. Vivarium is built to display the beauty and brains it was designed for. 

What's behind the glass is a Radeon RX 9070 XT with 16GB, which trades blows at 1440p with cards costing a good deal more, and a Ryzen 5 9600X well matched to it. Then there's the part that isn't obvious from a spec list: the motherboard and the power supply are both deliberately bigger than this build needs. A 14-phase processor power design and a fully modular 850W Gold supply are what you'd specify for a Ryzen 9 and a far hungrier card, and they're here on purpose.

That's the whole idea. This is the machine you buy now, enjoy for four or five years, and then slot in a simple upgrade or two without having to rebuy everything. 

This PC is already built and ready to ship. The catch? Just one in stock, and it will not be restocked. Our already-built PCs take advantage of supplier deals, which we pass onto you, but aren't repeatable ad infinitum

🧬 Built to last, designed to evolve

This system is built on AMD's latest AM5 platform, which offers one of the best upgrade paths available today. That means you can start with a great processor now and still have room to move up the stack later, while keeping the same motherboard, case, power supply and most of your core components. On this build that path is unusually wide open: the board's 14-phase power delivery and dual 8-pin CPU connectors will hold anything AMD sell on AM5 including the Ryzen 9 parts, and the 850W supply has been sized to take a considerably faster graphics card without a rebuild. Two memory slots and two M.2 slots are free as well.

📃 Specifications

• 🧠 CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 6 cores, 12 threads of Zen 5, 3.9GHz base and 5.4GHz boost, with 32MB of L3 cache. 65W TDP, and it draws around 88W when every core is loaded
  • Well matched to the card in front of it. At 1440p this machine is limited by the graphics card rather than the processor in almost every game, which is exactly where the balance should sit at this price. Spending more here wouldn't have bought frames
  • Zen 5 single-thread performance is strong, which is what competitive shooters at high refresh actually depend on
  • That 88W peak is well inside what the cooler fitted here is built for, so the processor holds its boost rather than backing off, and the fan never has to work hard to allow it
  • Integrated Radeon graphics are on board, which sounds irrelevant until the day a graphics card needs sending away and you'd rather still have a working PC
• ❄️ CPU cooler: APNX AP1-V, single tower air cooler with ARGB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 165mm tall, with 5 direct-touch 6mm copper heatpipes and a 120mm PWM fan running 600 to 1800rpm
  • A sleek and smooth designed tower cooler
  • Rated to 245W against a processor that peaks near 88W. That surplus is the point. A cooler running well inside its capability is what makes a machine last longer.
  • Fluid dynamic bearing fan rated for 80,000 hours
  • Lit on the fan, synchronised with the rest of the machine rather than doing its own thing
  • Mounted with thermal paste applied by hand rather than a pre-applied pad, and the fan curve set before it ships
• 🔲 Motherboard: MSI PRO B650-A WIFI (ATX)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • AMD B650 on a full ATX board, socket AM5, with a 14+2+1 power design using 80A power stages under a heavy plated VRM heatsink, fed by two 8-pin EPS connectors
  • This is the half of the build that doesn't show, and it's why the machine has a future. The number of power phases and the current each one passes is what decides whether a board can hold a high core count processor at full boost for hours without quietly throttling it. 14 stages at 80A with dual EPS is specification you'd look for on a board sold for enthusiast overclocking, not one sitting under a Ryzen 5. It means a 9950X or a 9950X3D dropped in later is a real upgrade rather than a processor the board limits
  • Four DDR5 slots supporting up to 256GB, with two free, rated beyond DDR5-7600 with EXPO
  • Three M.2 slots, all PCIe 4.0 x4, and only one is used. Two full-speed slots stay free, with an M.2 Shield Frozr heatsink on the primary
  • Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 built in with the aerial supplied, plus 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet
  • Rear I/O includes a 20Gbps USB-C, a 10Gbps USB-A, a 5Gbps USB-A and USB 2.0, plus HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 1.4, optical audio out and the 2.5G network port
  • PC36 only uses motherboards chosen for stability and longevity. See our Trusted brands page
• 📏 Memory / RAM: 32GB (2×16GB) DDR5-6000 CL36, Lexar Thor RGB
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • A matched pair at DDR5-6000 CL36-40-40-96, EXPO enabled, lit across the top edge
  • DDR5-6000 on AM5 is the setting, not a compromise. It's the speed at which the memory controller runs in step with the memory rather than at half its rate, and it's where the platform is fastest. Kits with bigger numbers on the box often measure slower in games for exactly that reason
  • 32GB is what stops you thinking about memory again. A game, a browser with too many tabs, Discord and a capture running together, and still room for creative work
  • Two of the four slots are free, so 64GB later is an addition rather than a replacement
  • On-die ECC and an integrated power management chip, both standard on DDR5 and both part of why it's more stable at speed than DDR4 ever was
• 💾 Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD (QLC), Biwin NV7200
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 7,200MB/s read and 6,200MB/s write, rated for 400TB of writes with a five year warranty
  • The 1TB runs at the same speed as the 2TB and 4TB drives in the range, which is not true of most budget families, where the smallest capacity is usually the slow one. At this size that's the figure worth knowing
  • QLC flash with a DRAM-less design, which is the honest tier at this price and quick for everything you'll do day to day. It slows only during very long sustained writes, such as moving hundreds of gigabytes in one go
  • Single sided with a graphene heat-spreading label, so it sits neatly under the board's own M.2 heatsink
  • Two further M.2 slots are free, both full PCIe 4.0 x4, so adding a second drive later costs nothing you've already bought
• 🎮 Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB, PowerColor Reaper
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • RDNA 4 with 64 compute units and 4,096 stream processors, 16GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus at 645GB/s, backed by 64MB of Infinity Cache. 304W board power
  • This is the card that makes the price look wrong in a good way. In current multi-game testing it sits level-ish with NVIDIA's RTX 5070 Ti at 1440p and a few percent behind at 4K, in machines costing considerably more than this one
  • 16GB of video memory, which is the specification that ages worst because you can't add to it later. Buying a card with enough of it is the single most effective thing you can do for how long a machine stays comfortable
  • Supports FSR 4, AMD's machine-learning upscaler, which is a real step up from FSR 3. AV1 encode and decode for streaming and recording as well
  • Being straight about ray tracing: RDNA 4 is a large improvement on what came before, and it's still behind NVIDIA here. Ray traced games run well at 1440p, but if heavy ray tracing is your priority rather than raw frame rate, say so on live chat and we'll point you at an NVIDIA build instead
  • A triple-fan card that's only two slots wide and around 292mm long, in a case that takes cards up to 420mm. Power comes from two 8-pin connectors, with no adapters anywhere in this machine
  • Three DisplayPort 2.1a outputs and an HDMI 2.1b
• 🧰 Case: Thermaltake View 270 TG ARGB, Black
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • 454 × 230 × 456mm on the outside, a little under 48 litres
  • The front-left corner has no pillar. Two flat tempered glass panels meet at the edge, so you look into the machine rather than through a window in the side of it. The lower section of both faces is steel mesh, which is where the air actually comes from
  • Takes boards up to E-ATX, which is well beyond anything this build needs and part of why it takes a rebuild or slot in upgrade so easily
  • Graphics cards up to 420mm and CPU coolers up to 180mm. Radiator support is 120 to 360mm in the top and 120mm at the rear
  • A full power supply shroud, so the supply, the drives and the cable slack all live below the glass line rather than in view
  • Front I/O is a 10Gbps USB-C, two USB 3.0 and a combined audio jack, mounted on the top edge. Two 3.5 inch and one 2.5 inch drive mounts, seven expansion slots
  • Realistically, it's a case you'd never need to replace
• 🌬️ Case cooling: 2 × 120mm reverse-blade ARGB side intake fitted by us, plus the 140mm ARGB rear exhaust included with the case
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Reverse-blade fans are the detail that matters in a case like this. A normal fan shows you its hub and its wiring from the side you look at; a reverse-blade fan turns the finished face towards the viewer. In a chassis built around a pillarless corner, that's the difference between a tidy machine and an obviously improvised one
  • The case ships with a single 140mm ARGB exhaust at the rear. The two intakes are ours rather than the manufacturer's
  • Cool air comes in at the side directly onto the graphics card, which is the part making most of the heat, and leaves through the rear and the top mesh
  • All lighting is synchronised to the motherboard, so the fans, the cooler and the memory light as one piece rather than as three parts that happen to be lit
  • Four-pin PWM throughout, curves set by hand before dispatch and verified through our standard stress testing rather than assumed
• ⚡ Power supply: Corsair RM850e 850W, fully modular
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Cybenetics Gold efficiency, fully modular, with a 120mm fan that stops entirely at low load
  • 850W behind a 304W card is deliberate. PowerColor ask for 750W; this machine has more than that, which means the supply spends its life in the quiet, efficient middle of its range rather than working near its limit, and a considerably faster card in a few years is a straight swap rather than a second purchase. For example, if you were to slot an RTX 5080 graphics card and Ryzen 79800X3D CPU in here, the PSU is still plenty.
  • Fully modular, so only the cables this build actually uses are fitted and the rest stay in the box. Behind a glass corner that is worth having
  • Seven year warranty from Corsair, which is longer than most units at this level and a fair indication of what they expect from it
• 🔌 Cabling: Black cabling, routed and tied
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Black cables throughout, matched to the black interior. Routed behind the motherboard tray, tied down, and the excess folded into the power supply shroud where the glass doesn't reach
    
  • Braided cable extensions in a colour of your choice are available. See the upgrade options below
• 📶 WiFi / Bluetooth / Ethernet: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3 and 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, included
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 are built into the MSI PRO B650-A WIFI. No separate adapter needed, and the aerial is supplied in the box
  • Wi-Fi 6E adds the 6GHz band, which is usually far less congested than 2.4 and 5GHz if your router supports it
  • 2.5 Gigabit wired Ethernet, which we'd still recommend over wireless for competitive play. To be plain about what that buys you: the extra bandwidth won't make a game feel different, because wired is about latency and consistency rather than speed. Where it earns its place is moving large files to a NAS or another machine on your network
• 🪟 Operating system: As chosen by you from the listing options below. Windows 11 Home (OEM) is recommended.
• 🧹 Setup and optimisation: PC36 High-Class Standard. Full stress test with certificate, bloat-free installation, and BIOS set up properly
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  PC36 High-Class Standard, included free with every build

  • Ready the moment you open the box. Your PC boots straight into Windows with a local account already set up. No account sign-in wall, no first-run questionnaire, no half-hour of setup before you can use the machine you just bought
  • BIOS updated and configured properly: manual fan curves, PBO enabled, EXPO enabled, Secure Boot enabled
  • Vanilla Windows 11 installation if you choose Windows, with no bloatware added by us, and all drivers loaded and ready to go
  • Full stress test with certificate. Every system is torture tested on CPU, RAM and GPU before dispatch, and ships with the certificate to prove it. The same test our most expensive machines get

  PC36 Premier Optimisation, available in the listing options

  • CPU tuning to bring thermals and noise down with minimal performance loss, a deeper strip and debloat of Windows, and the case fans tuned by hand for the quietest operation the machine will hold
  • Good value on this build. A 65W processor under a 245W cooler is already running cool, so the gain is mostly in the fan profile and the Windows work, and with a glass-cornered case sitting in view there's usually a desk beside it

  PC36 Ultimate Performance Tune, available in the listing options

  • Advanced overclocking: memory tune, CPU tune and GPU overclock on top of everything in Premier
  • Honest answer on this build: the graphics card sets the frame rate at 1440p, so a processor tune won't change it much. The GPU overclock and the memory tune are where the gains are, and the Reaper runs at reference clocks so there's genuine room in it. Real, but modest
• 🛡️ Warranty: 3 years parts & labour (return to base)
  Click or tap for deeper spec info

  • Standard 3-year coverage included, parts and labour both
  • Optional extended warranties in the listing options below

👁️ Transparency notes

• Because this one is already built, the specification is fixed (click or tap to read more)

  Most of what we sell is built to order from a series we can repeat. This one exists because several component deals landed at the same time, and the specification reflects that. Unlike our built-to-order machines we can't swap the case or the board for you, because this one is already assembled and tested. Memory, storage and cooling can still be changed. Anything else is worth asking about on live chat before you order rather than after.

• There's a lot of light in this machine, and all of it can be turned down (click or tap to read more)

  Three ARGB fans and lit memory, all under motherboard control. Every part of it can be dimmed, set to a single colour or switched off entirely, and none of it affects how the machine performs. Tell us what you'd prefer and we'll set it that way before it ships.

• The product images shown are real photographs of this exact PC.

🛠️ Popular upgrade options

• This machine is already built, which changes what is possible. Memory, storage and cooling can be changed, along with your choice of operating system, the optimisation tiers and an extended warranty. Everything else is fixed, so anything not listed below is a live chat conversation worth having before you order rather than after.
• Memory upgrade to 64GB: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth it only if you do heavy creative work, run virtual machines, or keep very large projects open alongside a game. For gaming at any resolution, 32GB is already past the point where more helps. Two slots are free, so it's an addition rather than a replacement, though a four-stick configuration usually runs a little slower than two sticks do.

• Storage upgrade: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth it if you keep more than a handful of large games installed at once, since modern installs regularly run past 100GB each. You can also defer it, because both remaining M.2 slots are free and run at full PCIe 4.0 speed, so a second drive later costs you nothing you've already bought.

• Operating system: choose from the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Windows 11 Home is what we recommend for a gaming machine and what almost everyone takes. Pro is worth it only if you need BitLocker, Remote Desktop or domain access. If you'd rather install your own, choose the no-OS option and the machine still arrives with the BIOS configured and tested.

• PC36 Premier Optimisation: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  The better value of the two tiers on this machine. The fan profile is where the quiet comes from, and the deeper Windows strip is included.

• Braided cable extensions: available in the listing options below.
  Click or tap for more info

  Worth considering on this build specifically, because the glass turns the corner and the visible cable run is part of what you're looking at. On a solid-panel case we'd tell you to save your money.

• Extended warranty: available in the listing options below.
• Anything else: speak with us via live chat before you order. You'll be talking to one of us, not a chatbot.

🎯 What is this PC best for?

• 1440p gaming at high to ultra settings in modern titles, which is what this pairing is built around
• 4K with FSR 4 doing some of the work, helped by the 16GB of video memory
• High frame rate competitive gaming at 1080p and 1440p
• Streaming and recording with AV1, with 32GB of memory behind it
• Desks where the PC is meant to be seen, and seen into
• Anyone who wants a machine that upgrades a long way without a rebuild, including all the way to a Ryzen 9

📊 Performance estimates

Figures are given at both 1440p and 4K. Performance varies with game updates, maps, settings and background apps. These are estimates, not guarantees.

Fortnite - Competitive Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 260-330 FPS
4K: 165-215 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

Cyberpunk 2077 - Ray Tracing Medium (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 92-118 FPS
4K: 54-69 FPS
Upscaling set to Auto (DLSS / FSR / XeSS based on GPU).

Battlefield 6 - High Settings (click or tap to expand)

1440p: 140-175 FPS
4K: 83-103 FPS
Native testing (no upscaling or frame generation).

💬 Need help?

Not sure if this is the right spec for you? Ping us on live chat and we'll help you choose the perfect PC for your games, work and budget. You'll be talking to one of us, not a chatbot.